The phones that changed the world: 18 handsets that defined the future of communication… 40 years after the UK's first ever mobile call
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With nine months of miners' strikes having brought Britain to its knees, the nation was ready to see the last of 1984. But with the bells of Band Aid's iconic Christmas number one still ringing, the twelfth chime of Big Ben promised new hope and change. It was 1985.
![[The Hollywood 'brick' - Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. It was the iconic 'brick' phone as used by ruthless banker Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas, in the 1987 classic movie Wall Street]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/19/16/93323825-14210919-image-a-3_1734626821492.jpg)
Moments into the new year another bell would ring – its caller amongst the masses gathered beneath the gaze of London's iconic clocktower, its receiver at home in Surrey. The first ever mobile phone call between Michael Harrison in Parliament Square and his father, Vodafone chairman Sir Ernest Harrison, sparked a revolution.
![[Described at launch by a Motorola executive as 'a new category of cellular - the personal cellular', the company viewed the MicroTAC 9800X 'as the wave of the future']](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/19/16/93323865-14210919-image-a-4_1734626973301.jpg)
Now, 40 years on from that historic call, one of the UK's leading authorities on mobiles has revealed the 18 most important handsets of the last four decades. Ben Wood is a mobile phone fanatic and both the founder and curator of the Mobile Phone Museum, which is home to some 2,800 unique devices spanning four decades.
![[Described as the 'Model T Ford' of mobile phones, the Nokia 101 sold 4.5 million units in 1995 – accounting for 42 per cent of Nokia's total sales volume]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/19/16/93323907-14210919-image-a-5_1734627037208.jpg)
Among his picks are the iconic Nokia 3210, which was designed with young people in mind. Also chosen – besides Apple's universally known iPhone - is the device used by the villainous Gordon Gekko in 1987 classic film Wall Street. Vodafone VT1. The phone that started it all - the Vodafone VT1 – was used by Michael Harrison to call his father Sir Ernest Harrison on January 1, 1985.
![[The One2One was another flip phone design with a retractable aerial. It launched in 1993 with unlimited free calls within the M25 in the evening]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/19/16/93323919-14210919-image-m-9_1734627080852.jpg)
The phone that started it all - the Vodafone VT1 – was used by Michael Harrison to call his father Sir Ernest Harrison on January 1, 1985. In 1983, Vodafone ordered 5,000 VT1's from Mobira and 5,000 Vodafone VM1 units from Panasonic, which were the phones used on the Vodafone network when it became the first network to go live when it launched in 1985.
![[Regarded as a PDA when it was launched, the IBM Simon was the device that could be called a 'smartphone' – borne from the desire to have a 'computer in your pocket']](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/19/16/93324017-14210919-image-a-11_1734627166209.jpg)
